Vasily Dzhugashvili

Vasily Iosifovich Stalin (, ; surname since 9 January 1962 Dzhugashvili, , ; 21 March 1921 – 19 March 1962) was the youngest son of Joseph Stalin, born from his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva. He joined the Air Force when Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, in 1941. After the war, he held a few command posts. After his father died in 1953, Vasily lost his authority, developed a severe alcohol problem, and was ultimately arrested and sent to prison. He was later granted clemency, though he spent the remainder of his life between imprisonment and hospitalization until he died in 1962. Early life Vasily was born on 21 March 1921, the son of Joseph Stalin and Nadezhda Alliluyeva. He had an older half-brother, Yakov Dzhugashvili (born 1907), from his father's first marriage to Kato Svanidze, and a younger sister, Svetlana, born in 1926. The family also took in Artyom Sergeyev, the son of Fyodor Sergeyev, a close friend of Joseph. Fyodor died in an accident four months after the birth of Artyom, so the boy was raised in the Stalin household. As his mother was interested in pursuing a professional career, a nanny, Alexandra Bychokova, was hired to look after Stalin and Svetlana. On 9 November 1932 Vasily's mother shot herself. To conceal the suicide, the children were told that Alliluyeva had died of peritonitis, a complication from appendicitis. It would be 10 years before they learned the truth of their mother's death. Svetlana would later write that the death of their mother had a profound impact on her brother. She noted that he started to drink alcohol at the age of 13, and in drunken episodes would curse and attack her. He became increasingly violent, especially towards Svetlana, and would be quite disruptive at Zubalovo, a dacha outside Moscow, his primary residence. After the death of Alliluyeva, Joseph Stalin ceased to visit his children; only the nursemaid and head of Stalin's security guards looked after Vasily and his sister. With his father frequently absent, Stalin became close to Károly Pauker, a Hungarian who worked as a bodyguard for his father. Pauker frequently travelled out of the Soviet Union and would bring back gifts to the younger Stalin, though during the Great Purge his foreign nationality and trips abroad had made him a target for repression, and he was shot in August 1937. Stalin spent time with other guards as well, drinking with them.